Today marks the start of the second week for the first semester of my second year in university. To think of it, so many things have happened in the past 365 days – right from the first day of the freshmen orientation camp of 2008 when I felt super disoriented – that’s why we have orientation camps for, don’t we? – to the forging of new friendships, the settling into cliques, the group outings, the laboratory reports, the dreadful exams, the pain-in-the-butt psychology 101 modue and etc. I can’t believe so many things happened in my honeymoon year – or at least, that’s what my seniors call it.
My new room!
I sweared to myself to move to Hall 8 weeks after my first year in university. Unfortunately, I landed a room in Hall 15 which is kind of far from almost everything – including my middle hall (Halls 8 to 11) and old hall (Halls 1Â to 7 except 3) friends. Hall 8 appealed to me to most because not only my BMF lives there, but also because it was located conveniently at the intersection of two local bus services and three intra-campus shuttle buses. Sounds very tempting, doesn’t it? And it’s just a few minute’s walk away from the pool (which I’m yet to use), two canteens, the lovely looking School of Art, Media and Design.
I managed to haul all my other junk from my old hall last Friday, with the help of BMF… whose birthday unfortunately falls on the same day as well. I felt terribly guilt-ridden to ask for help from a birthday boy who’s supposed to be enjoying his day off, but then there wouldn’t be anyone around to help me move before the hall office closes (at a very convenient time of 5.30pm, when most of my friends’ classses only end). I even tried to ask for help on Facebook, but only BMF and Legend replied, and Legend’s lesson only ends around the same irritating time the hall office closes, so I have only BMF to depend on. Actually, Mel also chimed in to help – she drives an SUV, doesn’t mind ferrying my two boxes in her vehicle but the problem is, she lives in the US. Thanks a lot for the offer though, Mel :P
BMF and I made our way to my old hall, moved my two boxes down to the road side and waited for a cab. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. Only one empty cab appeared, and after we flagged it down we were only to be told that he’s on call – yea right, I saw his green light on. My best guess is he chickened out seeing that we had to squeeze two boxes into his delicate yellow cab. That was the last straw, I tried to call for one when another empty cab appeared. BMF hurriedly flagged it down, and the driver was more than happy to help us ferry my boxes around. Whew!
The fare ended up to be around $4.60. I gave him $10 and asked for a change of $5 will do – not every cab drivers are kind enough to pick up passengers like me with bulky luggages. When BMF moved from his temporary room to his current room (which was, surprise, two doors away from mine), he called a cab and when the driver saw the ungodly amount of stuff he needs to ferry, showed the blackest face on earth.
So now I’m happily settled into my new room!
My new room at Hall 8!
They renovated the middle hall and new hall areas during the summer vacation – now we have some realistic-looking, wood-patterned vinyl flooring (initally I was foolish enough to believe that they were wooden), a new set of IKEA-esque furnitures which I have no idea why they picked white since they get dirtiest most easily and new drapes!
I live on the bed with the white sheets, and my roomie on the one with blue sheets (extreme right). The orange folded mattress is actually my squatter’s – he’s temporarily living with us until he manages to land himself a room on campus. For that, I’ll have to thank all superstitious and desperate moms back in 1987~1988 who, by hook or by crook, wanted to get their kids born in the auspicious year of dragon. Now we have a highly inflated male population because of the dragon-baby rush, resulting in many innocent people being displaced from rooms :(
Terry is incredibly bored
For the moment being, that is.
Chong and his bruised shoulders, chatting with an incredibly bored and unmotivated Terry.
Chong, my BMF, just returned from cheer training. His shoulders were badly bruised no thanks to the intensive cheerleading training. I can completely understand his decision to leave cheer when they do the passover a few weeks later. Poor thing! I was kind of bored, video chatting with him. In the background is my dearest roomie of four years :)
p/s: Yea and I am very well aware that I do not look like a second year university undergraduate.
Hey Teddy, the room looks pretty neat and clean for two guys!! :)
Nice cosy room! It’s setup like my first dorm in university except that we got old furniture! I see a lot of fans in the room, is there no AC? o.O
Is it me, or are rooms in NTU generally, as a rule, nicer looking than the ones in NUS?
Your room rocks, Terry. Like seriously.
HAH terry, ask chong to wear those girly shoulder pads, and ask him to wear a bra to keep the pads in place lah.
He sure can score some extra points for creativity one. Who knows, he might be even inducted into the girls cheer leading team lah. Wah, what is BMF, so hard to decipher one. but hell yeah, it looks like his shoulders were raped by an octupus man.
Eh bila balik, chong say wanna eat tenji, some come along lah ok?! I belanja
Your room looks so cool and neat! I only hope that I can get one like that in UK :P I think my boarding house would be more… antique-looking? Not sure though :P But you have a lovely room!
Hey the design of your room is exactly like mine… Except mine is not so nicely decorated
Your room looks cosy and very colourful for a guys dorm. :) I’m having the same question as Ivy as well, is there no air-con?
Haha! I couldn’t help laughing when I see your pouting face – it’s really cute! :D And yes, you do look young which I’m sure many will envy you. :)
what bmf!? eh my birthday isn’t the sabbath day so i still can do some work ok! the world doesnt stop for me on my bday :P
@Michelle: Thanks! Actually, it gets messier over time and I’ll have to clean it up every two weeks, heh. Guys’ rooms are never clean.
@Ivy: Oh. That’s because the halls were recently renovated for the coming Youth Olympic Games (YOG). They wanted the hostels to look more welcoming and neater. As we paid the painful price of having to move out immediately our exams because the rooms needed to be vacated for the renovation team to work. Nope, there’s no AC :( actually they installed it during the renovations but we are not allowed to use them before YOG ends.
@Eli: The rooms were just renovated for the Youth Olympics. Before the renovation our halls and rooms look equally bad, heh.
@tysern: Chong is not continuing in the team anymore. I talked to him about it and I can really understand how tiring and exhausting cheering can be. Well at least he did manage to make girls fly, eh?
@Chien Yee: I’m not sure how UK dorms would look like, but I’m a big fan of vintage decoration (just have to make sure that they’re not bug infested will do). Do send us some pictures of your place and your university when you arrive in the UK, okay? Have a safe trip!
@Jas: Haha, they are supposed to be! Just that my room is smaller. Gah. The double-sharing rooms in your hall is so much larger than mine!
@Dayna: Thanks Dayna! There is no AC, sadly. They are installed but we can only stare and admire it like poor little kids outside the candystore window. We can’t use them until YOG ends – which is one year later. Eh, looking young isn’t exactly a good thing – especially when you have friends who insist that you buy alcoholic drinks and see you fumble for your ID (my friends look old enough so they don’t have to show IDs). Damn.
@Chongx: Best male friend? Haha. Thanks for helping me shift anyway :D I owe you something!
Oh, I see. What is there such a rule that it can only be used then? Ah ha! You have the same problem as me then. My friends like to tease me about it as well. Whenever I go to 7-11 for alcohol drinks, I will always hear “Miss, IC or driving license please?”. But then again, I take it as a compliment. :P
Well, according to the school administration, yep. Although they claim that the wiring are not completely done and that the installation is incomplete, I seriously doubt so :)
I guess that’s the only thing we can complain about looking too young, heh! I remember several instances where the stallholders at food courts gave me more food because I “looked so young”.
nice looking room there coussie…have a great new sem ahead ;)
wow…i can’t believe that u have nice room like that….my room? ow…..messy that your room
@med: Thank you! Now my squatter has just moved out, I have more room to roam :) gone were his stuff and his orange matteress, the latter of which complimented the green hue of my room. I shall get an orange bedsheet then!
@evelynpy: Believe me, it’s a lot messier than in the photo now. My room needs some serious cleaning every two weeks, let alone a big tidy up because I’ll just stash my things in every nook and cranny I can find, haha!
LOL at your dragon-baby theory. XD
I could be born in that year too btw, but I guess my mum (who was also born in the year of dragon) wasn’t too excited about having one more female ‘dragon’ in the family. Hahaha.. So year of rabbit is also cute I guess. =)
Btw, agree with all the ladies up there. Your room looks really nice! The bright colorful furnitures just gain our attention.
Believe or not, it’s for real. This year the campus population was a lot larger than the previous year’s because of the dragon baby boom. If parents could be less superstitious, we would have a good balance of people across all age groups, haha.
One more female dragon in the family. Your mom’s born in the year of dragon too? Rabbit is a cute year :) haha! I’m born in the year of snake – although I’m supposed to be intelligent but I can’t shake this feeling of being evil. And I always tease my brother that I’ll eat him up because he’s born in the year of goat *laughs*
Awww, thanks! Sadly it’s not as neat as the photo anymore. Cleanup due in a week’s time!
I agree with the dragon baby issue. The large number of dragon babies make entering university tougher as well. I didn’t manage to get into a local university during my year (I’m born in the year of the dragon as well). A friend of mine with even lower GPA manage to get into NTU Accountancy in the previous year. This is something I really hate about being born in the year of the dragon. :(
It seems that the dragon baby rush is for real! In one way or another, kids born in the dragon year will have to put up a better fight for the same places because of the number of people vying for university entrance. Sorry to hear that you didn’t manage to get into a local university :( but look! You’re doing great and happy :) *pats pats*
Have a great weekend, Dayna!
p/s: I keep reading your HK trip post over and over again because I keep discovering new things in the photos. I really love that entry.
Hey Terry :) I just wanna thank you for all your help at the lab… I really wouldn’t have a clue without you. Glad to have such a sweet a lovely friend for many other reasons :)
Oh come on, Jas! We’re friends! You’re not supposed to say things like that and I’m more than happy to help. I’ll be bringing my old statistics notes back from home this weekend anyway – to see if they are of any use for BS205.
Have a great weekend! :D
Teddy! Oh, how I’ve missed you. I should be in bed now but I wanted to hurry up and catch up on some of your blog posts. hehe
Nice to see you are all settled in at school. How is it living in a dorm? I know you’ve done it for years now.. I’m just curious how it is. Very cool you and you’re roomie has been roomies for the entire time at school! That is so cool. You can actually choose who you want to be roomies with? I’m not sure if you can do that here.. hmm. I would hate to get stuck with some random person though, lol.
Your room looks really nice. Very cozy and clean! Simple yet roomy. I actually like the green color and the brown drapes. I am always to curious as to what my online friend’s rooms/houses look like, so thanks for sharing! It’s so nifty knowing how one lives.. especially a friend that lives on the other side of the planet. ..and do I spy hearts on your bed sheets? :P
I hope all is well, Teddy and you are enjoying school and it’s not boring you too much! I so miss school, ugh. Can not wait to go back! *hugs* Have a great week!
Wow thanks for the comment Trina! You’re really busy lately and I feel bad you actually felt compelled to leave a comment when it’s way beyond your bedtime.
Living in a dorm is nothing new to me, although I love exploring my new rooms! It feels like you’re moving into a new unit that you’ve rented from a landlord or something. Our rooms are electronically-locked so we got a credit-card sized card to open the door, a feature added after the renovation. I didn’t quite like it though – I prefer the old locks because at least we can duplicate the keys for safekeeping’s sake.
My roomie and I have been roomies for the past four or five years I think. We’ve known each other well and so I don’t mind living with him. He’s quite busy with his arts course and so doesn’t return often, and that’s when I get to enjoy my ‘single’ room- although it’s meant to be a double-sharing one.
Living with a random person adds some excitement but of course, for picky people like me I find it hard to put up with a new stranger’s habits. Some of them can be terribly filthy, smell very bad, don’t give a flying f*ck about tidyness… and some are even downright badass kind of people who’d steal your stuff and etc. Of course, those are for extreme cases, but I can’t dismiss the probability of having one behaving just like that, haha!
The brown drapes actually come with the room, but the green sheets are mine. I prefer green sheets (in fact, both sets are green – the other one’s in the wardrobe) because it makes me feel like I’m sleeping on a pile of leaves. That happens when my parents let their baby boy watch one too many runs of Jungle Book.
I’m happy to share my bedroom! It doesn’t look as neat as it is now (you can ask Jas, who left a comment above you – she visited me the other day and screamed and recoiled in horror). I’m not sure if those are hearts though! They don’t look like hearts to me :P
School is kind of busy! We have a helluva project works to do and less tutorials at the same time. I’d prefer tutorials because projects mean I’ll have to work with strangers to come up with a paper at the end of the senmester :/
May you have a great one too! Take your mind off work this weekend and allow yourself to unwind yea?
Are you kidding? I enjoy stopping by your blog! It has suck not being able to find the time to lately.. but today is my day off and I am enjoying it soo much. I also had yesterday off too! Yayy.
Dorm rooms seem sorta fun. It’s like walking into a clean slate and you can decorate how ever you want! I love seeing shared rooms where one side is decorated to the taste of one roomie and the other is decorated to the taste of the other roomie. A nice mesh and colors and different styles!
I don’t know if I’d be up with living with someone new. Like you said, they could be smelly & filthy people. But then again, there are always those who are not. :P I guess it’s just something one would have to risk to find out! Although, it would be cool getting to know someone who happens to actually live with you too.. I think it’s great that you have kept the same roommate. :)
Sorry to hear about the overload of projects! I agree, I would rather do tutorials than projects. :P I never enjoyed working in groups when in school.. okay, well. Sometimes I did, I guess it all depends on who you are working with. I never enjoyed working with the kids who didn’t do a damn thing, never contributed ideas and what not. I think when you’re paying to go to college, you should get the best of it and not waste valuable time.. but that’s just me. :P It always bugged me when people weren’t making use of their college years & studies. But anyways! That’s another story, hehe.
I wish you a great week ahead! And don’t let all your studies get the best of you. You, too, take some time to unwind as well. I did! And I love it. :D